These easy 3 ingredient dinner recipes will make it easy for you to make cheap and delicious meals your family will love without spending a lot of time in the kitchen!
Easy 3 Ingredient Dinner Recipes – Delicious Meals Fast!
This post is dedicated to my friend and neighbor Katie. She came over and we were talking and she said “I need some super easy 3 ingredient or less recipes for dinner”. As I was telling her about a couple of these recipes she had no idea these could be made and so easy too! She grew up with a mom who never cooked so she didn’t learn how to cook either and now would like to learn. If you are new to cooking at home try some of these recipes to get you started and get a good cookbook to help you along the way. Even if you are an old pro try some for those days when you just need something quick and easy!
Easy Creamy Chicken
4 boneless chicken breasts
1 can cream soup (cream of chicken, cream of mushroom or cream of celery)
Bake at 275 degrees, covered with foil, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until the chicken is cooked through. Serve over rice and or cooked vegetables.
You can also make this easy dinner recipe in the crockpot. Just dump everything in and cook for 4-6 hours on low.
3 Ingredient Salsa Chicken
6 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless OR 6-8 chicken pieces
2 cups salsa
1 cup shredded cheese (Cheddar or Mexican Blend)
Place the chicken in a crockpot and pour the salsa on top. Cook for 1 1/2 – 2 hours on high. Place cheese on top and let it melt during the last 10-15 minutes.
3 Ingredient Sweet Pork Chops Or Ribs
4 pork chops (They can still be frozen.) OR 2-3 lbs. pork ribs
12 oz. bottle chili sauce
1 cup grape jelly
Grease the crockpot with oil cooking spray. Place the pork chops in the crockpot. In a bowl, mix the chili sauce and grape jelly. Pour the mixture on the pork chops. Cook on low for 6-8 hours (8 hours if frozen). These pork chops or ribs will fall of the bone! Super Yummy!
3 Ingredient Ritz Chicken
1 lb. chicken (boneless skinless), cut into strips
1/2 bottle of ranch dressing
1 sleeve of Ritz Crackers, crushed (generic is fine)
salt and pepper
Place the ranch dressing and the Ritz crackers in separate bowls. Grease a 9×13 inch pan. Salt and pepper the chicken. Dip the chicken in ranch dressing and then dip in the crackers. Place in the pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes.
3 Ingredient Creamy Chicken Tacos
1 can Rotel tomatoes OR 1 cup salsa
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 bar cream cheese ( 4 oz.)
Place the chicken and Rotel or salsa into a greased crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. 30 minutes before serving, place cream cheese on top. No need to stir. Finish cooking 30 minutes. When ready to serve, stir and break up chicken. Serve with tortillas.
3 Ingredient Chicken Cacciatore
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts or 4-8 chicken pieces
1 bottle spaghetti sauce
2-3 cups vegetables like zucchini, mushrooms and onions
Grease the crockpot. Add the chicken and spaghetti sauce. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. One hour before serving, add vegetables and continue cooking. Serve over pasta.
3 Ingredient Beef Tacos
1 lb. ground beef
1 pkg. taco seasoning (or homemade)
1 can Rotel tomatoes and green chilis
Put all in a greased crockpot and cook for 5-7 hours on low. Stir ever few hours to break up beef. (can be done before if you are gone all day). Serve on taco shells.
3 Ingredient Barbecue Meatballs
25 frozen fully cooked meatballs ( half 32 oz. bag)
1 cup grape jelly
1 cup Barbecue sauce
Combine sauces in your crock-pot and stir until combined. Add meatballs and stir until they are coated with the sauce. Cook on high for 3 hours. Serve over rice.
3 Ingredient Sausage Biscuits and Gravy
1 lb. breakfast sausage
2 cans refrigerator biscuits (10 to a can so 20 total)
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
Brown and drain the sausage. Place 1 can of biscuits in the bottom of a greased slow cooker. Top with half of the brown sausage and then 1 can of cream of mushroom soup. Repeat the layers. Cook 4 hours on low.
3 Ingredient Dr. Pepper Pork
1 can Dr. Pepper
1 packet onion soup mix (or homemade)
2-3 lbs. pork roast
Grease crockpot and place pork roast in crock pot. Sprinkle pork with onion soup mix. Pour the Dr. Pepper over the pork until it is almost covered in the crockpot. Cook on high for 4-5 hours. Drain juice and shred and serve with BBQ sauce if desired on buns.
Ranch Chicken and Potatoes
4 skinless boneless chicken breast
2 cups ranch dressing
4 large potatoes, cubed
paprika (optional)
Put chicken on the bottom of crockpot, add potatoes, cover in ranch and sprinkle with paprika if desired. Cook 4-5 hours on low. If you like firm potatoes cook for less time and if you like soft potatoes cook longer.
For lots more easy and delicious dinner recipes, check out our cookbook!
Click here to get the Dining On A Dime Cookbook, with tasty recipes and great tips to make your life easier and save you money!
Teri Thomsen says
July 30, 2015 at 12:53 pmFor the creamy chicken recipe – do you add any water to the can of cream of soup when you make recipe in the crock pot?
Jill says
July 30, 2015 at 3:29 pmNo you don’t need too.
donna b says
September 16, 2018 at 8:34 amHi Jill: don’t know if you can get this where you are, but sometimes I used cream of onion soup. it comes out pretty tasty.
Jill says
September 17, 2018 at 12:19 pmHi Donna yes I can get this. As a matter of fact I am the one who usually deals with all of these questions and they come straight to me. Using the onion soup on this I imagine would taste really good too so thanks for the idea.
Trudy says
July 30, 2015 at 1:55 pmThese recipies are so easy and they look scrumptious, I will be trying all of them–Thank you so much
Denis says
August 3, 2015 at 12:22 amThe pork chop or ribs recipe calls for 12 bottle chili. Twelve??? You mean 1/2 as in one half, I hope or this is made for people used to eating food not made on this planet because I would be ejected from the planet by eating this food. LOL
Jill says
August 3, 2015 at 10:01 amThanks for the heads up Denis. It is suppose to be 12 oz. bottle.
Sarah says
December 30, 2015 at 5:27 pmWhats the best type of potato to use? every time ive done something similar to this in the past, my potatoes never cook all the way through 🙁
Jill says
December 30, 2015 at 6:57 pmI don’t think it makes any difference what kind you use. You may need to just cook it a little longer because crock pots cook at so many different temperatures that yours may just not be hot enough so needs longer cooking. Be sure to cube the potatoes too and if all of these fail then nuke the potatoes for a minute or two before putting them in the crock pot.
Brandy says
January 15, 2016 at 1:51 pmFor the Ritz chicken if you don’t like Ranch dressing what other dressing would you recommend?
Tawra says
January 15, 2016 at 3:30 pmYou could mix some mayo with parmesan cheese.
Susan Jones says
January 22, 2018 at 12:39 pmI don’t like ranch either and wonder if you could substitute another dressing?
Jill says
January 22, 2018 at 6:47 pmYou could use another creamy type of dressing although you wouldn’t have the same flavor because of the spices that are used in the ranch dressing
Susan says
September 13, 2018 at 5:26 amCreamy Italian would work!
Mvie says
September 4, 2018 at 12:51 pmFor the beef taco- is there a skillet version for that?
Jill says
September 4, 2018 at 12:59 pmYes all you need to do is fry the ground beef, drain and add rest (drain tomatoes and chilies). You might simmer for about 5-10 mins in the frying pan or while you are getting other things for the meal ready. I never use a crock pot for this.
Mvie says
September 6, 2018 at 3:59 pmWould the same skillet version apply for the chicken tacos?
Jill says
September 7, 2018 at 12:08 pmYes. A crock pot is nothing more that a pan that you just cook on low with. You can make the same things in the oven or on the stove as in a crock pot. I don’t even own a crock pot now. The low temp on a crock pot is the same as something cooked at 250 in the oven in a pan, the high temp is the same as 350 degrees in the oven. In a skillet just turn it down to very low or simmer.
Brandy says
September 21, 2018 at 10:21 amHi, for the 3 ingredient ranch chicken and potatoes it says 2 cups ranch so I’m guessing it is the regular ranch and not the dry mix?
Jill says
September 22, 2018 at 7:41 amYes it is the regular.
Melissa says
March 7, 2019 at 8:20 amThank you for helping my family with your website. Told my husband and he told me to follow your grocery list for the planned meals! Oh, I tried your meatloaf, it was outstanding. And was complemented! Credit goes to y’all.
Jill says
March 8, 2019 at 8:28 amThank so much Melissa and tell your husband thank you too. 🙂 🙂
Cheri newman says
May 3, 2019 at 10:29 pmThese recipes look great do you have nutrition facts on them we are trying to eat low carb so I was just wondering ,do you have any ideas how I can use some or all your recipes while I am doing low carb and I have a friend that has diabetes can you help.
Jill says
May 6, 2019 at 8:45 amNo Cheri I am afraid we don’t have nutrition facts on our recipes. We have thousands of them there is no way time wise to do that and most of ours are old family recipes. We also so at this point in time have no less than about 50 different special diets that people are all on so to try to adapt all the recipes for each diet would take months plus diets tend to change every 10 yrs or so but we have had many many people who have special diets that use our book and such because they say that the recipes are so simple and easy that it is easy to adapt them to their special recipes.